draw-well

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. A deep well from which water is drawn by a long cord or pole and a bucket.

n. In old-fashioned furniture, a deep drawer in which valuables wore kept.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Examples

A dense red light, more like a distant spark than a lamp, affixed to the wall of what seemed a very narrow and winding stair, resembling in shape and size a draw-well, the verge of which opened on the threshold of the iron door, showed a descent which seemed to conduct to the infernal regions.

Then I lay down, well-nigh dead for travail and trouble and terror, and slept without surcease till morning, when I arose and walked about under the trees, till I came to the channel of a draw-well fed by a spring of running water, by which well sat an old man of venerable aspect, girt about with a waist-cloth60 made of the fibre of palm-fronds. 61 Quoth I to myself, Haply this

I have a draw-well in my porch, and another in my garden, which supply tolerable water for culinary uses; but what we drink, is fetched from a well belonging to a convent of Dominicans in this neighbourhood.

I wish for their sakes I had the key of my study, out of my draw-well, only for five minutes, to tell you their names — recollect them I cannot — so be content to accept of these, for the present, in their stead.

There was a sky and a sun over them, and a great high wall, covered with ivy, rose before them, and was so high they could not see to the top of it; and there was an arch in this wall, and the bottom of the draw-well was inside the arch.

Philip, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, was working the windlass of a draw-well, and sending sparkling fresh water coursing into an oaken trough, while in the pool beneath it some early-rising ducks were taking a bath.

The remains lie in the uneven quartzose basin at the head of the little lateral watercourse: they are built with good cement, and they evidently belong to the race that worked the “Mother of the Villages;” but there is nothing to distinguish them except the ruins of a large Sákiyah (“draw-well”), with its basin of weathered alabaster.

But there are not wanting unsympathetic souls, who pride themselves on being nothing if not practical, who pretend to think that this hidden depth is nothing more mysterious than the old draw-well of the castle.